UN resolution on atomic work rejected

TEHRAN -- The people of Iran are entitled to produce their own nuclear fuel, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday, rejecting the terms of a draft UN resolution that demands Iran give up its nuclear work. Ahmadinejad said Iranians were seeking ``peaceful nuclear technology." France issued

a draft resolution to the Security Council on Friday demanding that Iran suspend nuclear activities by Aug. 31 or face the threat of sanctions if it refuses. A vote is expected this week. (Reuters)

PHILIPPINES

BAGUIO CITY -- The United States remains hopeful that North Korea will rejoin six-party talks about its nuclear weapons program, US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said yesterday on a visit to the Philippines. Pyongyang rebuffed efforts to coax it back to negotiations last week, but Hill said US talks with South Korea, China, Japan, and Russia would send a message to North Korea ``to think clearly and come back to the dialogue." (AP)

SOMALIA

MOGADISHU-- The first commercial flight in a decade departed Mogadishu's international airport yesterday, demonstrating how Islamic militants have pacified the once-anarchic capital and much of southern Somalia. Local airlines had been operating from private airstrips outside the capital. Now,

Islamic militiamen are guarding the airport for commercial passengers, said Sheik Muqtar Robow, deputy defense chief for the Islamic group. (AP)

THAILAND

BANGKOK -- The H5N1 bird flu virus has been found in the Thai northeast bordering Laos, prompting culling of 310,000 hens after the virus killed a teenager elsewhere in the country last week, the Agriculture Ministry said yesterday. Vice Agriculture Minister Charal Trinwuthipong said the outbreak on 78 farms might be caused by H5N1-infected egg trays taken from Laos. (Reuters)

SEYCHELLES

VICTORIA -- President James Michel was celebrating his reelection today after beating an Anglican priest, with 54 percent of the vote, extending his party's 30-year rule over the Indian Ocean islands. Seychellois cast their ballots yesterday on the last day of a vote dominated by concerns over economic growth and a shortage of foreign currency on the archipelago of 81,000. Opposition leader Wavel Ramkalawan's Seychelles National Party conceded defeat. (Reuters)

NETHERLANDS

AMSTERDAM -- UN chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte has appealed the two-year sentence the UN war crimes tribunal gave a Bosnian Muslim wartime commander of Srebrenica, saying it was too short, her spokesman said yesterday. Ponte's office had demanded 18 years. Last month, the tribunal in The Hague found Naser Oric guilty of failing to prevent the murder of Serbs near the Bosnian Muslim enclave of Srebrenica early in the 1992-95 conflict. He was released for time served. (AP)

SRI LANKA

COLOMBO -- Sri Lanka's four-year cease-fire is now void and the island's two-decade civil war is back on, a top Tamil Tiger rebel said in an interview as the guerrillas and the military entered a sixth straight day of fighting today. (Reuters)